To maintain an ecological balance within an aquarium, it is necessary to clean the aquarium water. Cleaning is often accomplished by filtering the aquarium water through a filter housing. In the filter housing, water enters a filter chamber, flows through a filter element, and is then returned to the aquarium.
In conventional filter housing arrangements, dead spots or areas of low flow often occur at regions upstream of the filter element. In these dead spots or areas of low flow, particulate material settles out of the water stream; the particulate material typically settling on the bottom floor of the filter housing.
To dispose of the settled and accumulating particulate material, the filter housing must be removed from the aquarium and rinsed at a sink, for example. This procedure can be messy and very inconvenient for the user. Some users choose not to deal with the mess and inconvenience, and accordingly maintain or replace only the filter element. If the settled particulate material is not disposed of regularly, a significant amount of the particulate material can be unintentionally returned to aquarium during filter element maintenance. In particular, when a user lifts the filter element from the filter chamber of the housing and has not taken precautions to shut down the water flow, the displacement of the filter element creates a flow pattern that entrains settled particulate material; the entrained particulate material bypassing the filtering process during such maintenance and returning to the aquarium.
In general, filter devices and arrangements used for filtering aquariums can be improved.